


Camouflage Among Ordinary Things

by the_rck



Series: Whoever I May Become [2]
Category: Phineas and Ferb, Phineas and Ferb the Movie: Across the 2nd Dimension (2011)
Genre: Aftermath, Day At The Beach, F/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-14
Updated: 2018-04-14
Packaged: 2019-04-22 23:41:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14319645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_rck/pseuds/the_rck
Summary: Candace and Jeremy won't get their childhood back. They're surprisingly okay with that.In which Candace and Jeremy have their day at the beach.





	Camouflage Among Ordinary Things

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Cynthia Manick's “Things I Will Tell My Children About Destiny.”
> 
> Thanks to Gonqueasel and lady_of_mists for beta reading.
> 
> I'm not using the episode that follows up on the movie as canon for this. Some bits would fit, and some wouldn't. This story would have to fit between the movie and that episode.

Candace felt uncomfortably exposed at the beach. It wasn’t what she was wearing. The bikini was non-regulation, but that wasn’t it. The garment covered nearly as much as her normal attire. The problem was that she was in the middle of an open area with no cover. Anyone could see her which meant anyone-- anything-- could identify her. Or shoot her.

There were far too many people for the gathering to be legal or ignored. The Normbots would arrive... Soon. People would die. Phineas and Ferb and Suzy would die.

No. Candace forced herself to remain seated. All the Normbots had been destroyed. Doofenshmirtz was sitting in a cell with his toy train. Going to the beach wasn’t dangerous. Not any more.

Jeremy Johnson sat next to her on the blanket. They were both equally tense, and Candace thought it was for the same reason. Neither of them wanted to miss the moment when the next danger started to cast a shadow. Both of them intended to do whatever had to be done to stop it.

Suzy Johnson was in the water. She was kicking and splashing in the shallows and running, shrieking with glee, at incoming waves so that they’d soak her to her shoulders. Candace and Jeremy were both watching her with one eye and scanning the horizon for threats. They took turns looking back over their shoulders at the dunes and the parking lot, each trying not to let any observer notice.

They each recognized the behavior in the other because it was impossible to miss, so Candace put her hand on Jeremy’s. “We both saw it end,” she said, as much for herself as for him. She squeezed his hand.

“We both saw it start, too,” Jeremy said. “One moment, this. The next…” He shook his head.

Candace looked at all of the children in the water. Her brothers weren’t as cautious as she was, but they also weren’t as relaxed as Suzy. That held in general; the younger children were less wary. Those who understood what had happened, well, most of them wanted to pretend that everything was normal again.

None of the adults were willing to talk about those years and the things they’d allowed to happen. Candace hadn’t actually expected better because Doofenshmirtz had been ruthless about eliminating anyone with any backbone. Unfortunately, it meant that she couldn’t trust any of them to remember and to guard against it all happening again.

Candace watched her brothers with a different type of attention now. She’d seen what they could become through the things their doubles from the other universe had managed, and she was going to make sure they were safe from that going wrong, too. Science didn’t have to be a weapon. Technology didn’t have to be death.

But...

They could become more frightening than Doofenshmirtz. The other Phineas and the other Ferb were more creative than Doofenshmirtz at his worst. They hadn’t been evil, but they also hadn’t, so far as she could tell, had any exposure to evil or greed. Her brothers didn’t seem interested, but they could become terrifying. Candace wasn’t sure what she’d do if either of them told her that he wanted to take over the Tri-State area. The effort he’d need to make in order to do it would be trivial.

Either? It would be both or neither. Or, worse, it would be someone offering them opportunities to play with a huge budget while the people with money inflicted horrors on the world with the things Phineas and Ferb created.

Candace could stop the exploitive would-be conquerors, but if the would-be conquerors were her brothers, she’d have to decide what she valued more, their safety or everyone else’s. She wasn’t absolutely sure that was a choice she could make, so she’d taken steps to have the Firestorm Girls and Buford and Dr. Baljeet play with the boys. Isabella gave Candace regular reports, and Dr. Baljeet recorded the details of the science and engineering.

Candace didn’t want to fight her brothers. She might not even be able to, but she’d have a chance to do something. Assuming she paid attention and acted swiftly.

“Hey,” Jeremy said. “Maybe we could buy your brothers ice cream?” He turned his hand so that he could squeeze hers. “Then we wouldn’t be sitting and looking--” He started to stand up. “I’m pretty sure other people are noticing that we’re… paranoid.” He said the last bit very softly, pitched just for her ears. “I think we’re scaring them.”

Candace bit her tongue on the urge to say ‘good!’ But people being afraid of her or of Jeremy wouldn’t make anything easier. People who were properly frightened might notice her brothers, so Candace made herself smile then stood and strolled toward the kiosk that sold snacks.

Jeremy kept hold of her hand. “ _He_ didn’t love anybody,” he said, “and I’m pretty sure your brothers are like you. They’d be organizing the resistance, not crushing it.”

As Candace and Jeremy passed, people turned to look. Candace had almost gotten used to it, but it still made the skin between her shoulder blades itch. She and Jeremy were the face of the Resistance. People weren’t going to forget who’d been there that day. Candace really wished she’d let Monogram take the credit. She could have gotten out through the tunnels; they all could have. No one would have suspected that a bunch of children were responsible.

She hadn’t even thought about it. She hadn’t trusted Monogram, and the idea of press coverage for anything but Doofenshmirtz’s propaganda had been too alien. The reporters and photographers had all come from outside of the Tri-State area, but everyone inside had seen the pictures and read the story. Then, later, they had seen the video. A lot of people had watched over and over, just to see Doofenshmirtz dragged off to prison again.

Repetition might make it real.

Even Suzy was going to remember when she saw that footage for the first time.

Monogram had apologized for not protecting her anonymity, but he’d said that he’d talked the news outlets into not showing the faces of the Firestorm Girls or of anyone else under fifteen. The price of that had been her name and Jeremy’s.

Candace supposed it was nice that the ice cream was free for the Heroes of the Resistance, but she missed being no one. Her mother pointing out that she was pretty certain to get into any university she wanted came nowhere near balancing things out.

That was still years away. A lot could happen between now and then, so university was much less important than free ice cream, and free ice cream was less important than being ready to grab Suzy and run if something went wrong.

Phineas and Ferb had enough situational awareness that they’d start running on their own. Suzy was four, and she thought that Candace and Jeremy were immortal and invulnerable. If they were with her, she was _safe_.

That meant that Candace had to be more than ready. Suzy and the kids like her were counting on Candace to take care of them. Candace hadn’t cracked in the years of hopeless resistance, so she was pretty sure she could carry that as long as she had to.

Probably for the rest of her life.

That didn’t mean they had to go out of their way to make things harder. “Next time,” Candace said, as they headed toward Phineas and Ferb, “maybe we can find a beach with fewer people.”

Jeremy laughed and said, “It’s better than Disney World.” His hands were full, so he wasn’t holding Candace’s hand any more.

Candace shuddered. Phineas and Ferb had been delighted by the very idea of an amusement park, and she’d pulled strings to get them a behind-the-scenes tour that explained the physics and engineering of all of the rides. Being a hero had to be good for something.

Candace had heard machinery and smelled heated grease and steel. She knew it wasn’t-- couldn’t be-- lurking Normbots or cyborgs, but she’d spent most of the tour ready for the attack that had to be coming. She hadn’t tried to kill anything, and nothing had actually tried to harm them, but by the time they had gotten home, she’d felt as exhausted as if she’d actually spent the day fighting.

She still wasn’t completely sure that the animatronics were harmless.

Ferb spotted them coming and tapped Phineas on the shoulder. 

Candace had no idea what they were building-- possibly some sort of boat? --or how they’d found anything in the sand and water to build _with_ , but she was prepared to admire it. After all, she’d spent years trying to make sure that her brothers could have all of this.

Phineas managed to talk and to eat ice cream at the same time.

Candace let his explanation wash over her. The main point that she got was that the whatever-it-was was meant to be fun for everyone. She approved of fun. In theory. For everyone else. She was very glad she’d kept her brothers out of the Resistance until the very end. Isabella and the other Firestorm Girls were having the same problems Candace and Jeremy were.

Candace wasn’t sure about Buford and Dr. Baljeet. Neither showed the same sort of damage from having lived through the Doofenshmirtz years as the Firestorm Girls did, but they might simply be hiding it better. Or maybe they showed it differently. Candace wasn’t actually sure how kids that age ought to act.

But Phineas and Ferb could play again. The Firestorm Girls had time to learn. Suzy wouldn’t have to be a Firestorm Girl; she could be a Fireside Girl, instead. 

Candace would do all of it again in order to give them this. Candace and Jeremy would watch to make sure nothing went wrong this time.

**Author's Note:**

> This may be the end of the series. I didn't expect to write a sequel to "To the Victor," but this happened anyway, so who knows?
> 
> I meant this to be utter fluff, but the more I thought about Candace and the 2nd Dimension backstory, the more I realized that, if she was a real person instead of a character in a cartoon comedy, she wouldn't be all right. The episode in the last season that followed up on the movie seemed to indicate that the vigilance and such were things she could put down if she choose. I'm not sure it would be.


End file.
